Planet Scenes April 2020
 |
 |
Venus and Pleiades, April 2020 Venus skirted the southeastern edge of the Pleiades on April 3, 2020, as shown in these wide and close-in views. According to Guy Ottewell, the next Venus passage through M45 will be among the main stars instead of just skirting them as this year. A deeper view shows more of the fainter stars around Venus' current position. |
 |
 |
Jupiter, Saturn and Mars, April 2020 On this morning of April 3, 2020, the three bright outer planets are arrayed along the ecliptic from eastern Sagittarius where Jupiter (and Pluto, of course invisible on the images, just below it) lives, to western Capricornus, into which Saturn and Mars have just crossed. This annotated image shows their movement from March 8 to April 3. I wondered if that red dot to the lower right of Mars was a hot pixel: No, it is not lol. It's the carbon star RT Capricorni ~ I will have to check that out sometime! |
 |
 |
On the evening of April 2, 2020, Venus is one day away from being closest to the Pleiades star cluster. The first image was in deep twilight and the second was taken after it became fully dark, except that a first quarter Moon lit up the sky from its position close to the second most impressive star cluster in the northern winter sky, M44, the Beehive. |
